Dr. Evelyn Farkas is one of the nation’s premier voices on American foreign policy and geopolitics, and one of the most-trusted experts on US-Russia relations. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, she was the Department of Defense’s top Russia expert under President Barack Obama. Farkas advised three US Secretaries of Defense during her tenure at the Pentagon and was responsible for policy toward Russia and the surrounding region. She is an outspoken voice on how America ought to respond to adversaries and manage aggressors, ranging from Russia to North Korea to Iran. Expertly positioned to discuss the at times tenuous intersection of foreign objectives and domestic priorities, she appears regularly as an NBC/MSNBC national security contributor to discuss hot-button geopolitical issues, and has penned research papers and op-eds featured in most leading publications. In her keynote talks, she discusses how America’s position abroad is shifting under the Trump administration, the global gamut of US foreign and defense policy, and current national security challenges including Russia’s role in the 2016 election.